After Cranmer's execution, Cardinal Pole, who had hitherto been in deacons' orders, was ordained priest, consecrated bishop, and invested with the pallium as Archbishop of Canterbury. His works of piety were numerous; he founded religious houses, preached, prayed, and watched for souls in all respects as one that must give account. He was made chancellor of the University of Oxford, by the resignation of Sir John Mason, and chancellor of that of Cambridge also, on the death of Gardiner.
To a sensitive mind there is no greater anguish than that which springs from the hostility of those whom it has faithfully served. This suffering it was Cardinal Pole's lot to incur. His whole life had been devoted to God, the church, and the holy see. For these he had endured exile, persecution, and the loss of all things. For their sakes he had seen his mother and his dearest relatives dragged to the scaffold. In their cause he had studied, written, toiled, prayed, and wept till his hairs were gray. As their defender and champion he had been welcomed to England by his cousin and sovereign, raised to the head of the English church, and made the chief instrument in bringing back the ancient religion. But having done so, having given every proof a prelate could give of his devoted attachment to his religion, having twice been on the very steps of the papal throne, with what agony must his spirit have been tortured when he found, as he did find, that he was in disfavor with Paul IV.; that he was superseded as legate; that he was recalled to Rome; and that, to crown the cup of bitterness, he and his friend, Cardinal Morone, were to answer to a charge of heterodoxy before the Inquisition.[124]
"Does Almighty God, therefore," he wrote to the pontiff,[125] "require that a parent should slay his child? Once, indeed, he gave this precept when he commanded Abraham to offer in sacrifice his son Isaac, whom he tenderly loved, and through whom all the promises made to the father were to be accomplished. And what are now the preparations your holiness is making but so many forerunners of the sacrifice of my better life, that is, of my reputation? For in how wretched a sense must that pastor be said to live who has lost with his flock the credit of an upright belief?... Is this sword of anguish, with which you are about to pierce my soul, the return I am to receive for all my services?"
Happily for the cardinal, Mary and Philip took his part. They remonstrated with the pope on the loss which they and their subjects would sustain if Pole were recalled, and they prevailed with the holy father so far that he consented to the cardinal's retaining the see of Canterbury, while he appointed Peto, the Greenwich friar, to supersede him as legate. Quite in the spirit of her father, Mary caused the nuncio who brought this decision to England to be arrested, and interdicted Peto from accepting the legatine office. He never received any official notice of his appointment, nor Pole of the papal decision. He was, however, too loyal a subject of the pope to avail himself of this regal interference. He ceased to act as legate, and sent his chancellor to Rome with entreaties and protests. Again the pope required that Pole should appear in Rome to clear himself from the charge of heresy; and Peto was summoned there also to assist the pontiff with his advice. Proceedings against the English cardinal were already commenced, and the distressing state of things was set at rest only by the death of some of the principal actors. Peto, the rival legate, died, and while the affair was still in suspense the grave closed over the disappointed, despairing queen, and the broken-hearted[126] cardinal. He was attacked by a quartan ague, and, feeling conscious of his approaching end, he made a will, in which he protested his attachment to the Church of Rome and especially to Pope Paul IV., from whom he had experienced treatment which seemed equally inexplicable and unkind. His last hours were passed in acts of devotion, and it was probably with supreme satisfaction that he laid his aching head on the pillow of death on the morning of the 18th of November, 1558. His friend, cousin, and sovereign had preceded him in the dark valley by only twenty-two hours, and he felt, no doubt, that his most powerful if not his best friend was no more. Elizabeth was already queen, and her Protestant tendencies were well known. There was every reason to suspect that she would reverse the religious system restored by her sister, and take advantage of the general unpopularity which Mary by her severity had incurred. There was one object only for which Cardinal Pole could reasonably wish to prolong his life, and that was to clear himself from the extraordinary charge which had been brought against him by calumniators. But it was the will of Providence that his fair and unspotted fame should be vindicated only after his death.
During forty days the palace at Lambeth was hung with black. An altar was placed in the apartment of the deceased cardinal, and masses were said constantly for the repose of his soul. His body was then conveyed to Canterbury with great pomp, and his funeral was followed by large numbers of citizens and clergy. The exalted rank of Cardinal Pole, the important part he had played in the history of his time, and the high offices he had filled made him an object of reverence to the multitude, who knew not, and did not even suspect, the intrigues of which he was the victim and the humiliating charge under which he lay.
We shall not endeavor in this place to follow the example of his indiscriminating panegyrists. Suffice it to say that he was a devoted son of the church, and that he did all in his power to resist the impious will of the tyrant with whom Providence had brought him face to face. His zeal for the conversion of England was laudable, though not crowned with the success which it deserved.
In his youth he had written a commentary on Cicero's works; but this was never printed, and the manuscript was lost. He excelled in exposition of the Scriptures, which were his constant study and delight. "His character," Mr. Froude allows, "was irreproachable; in all the virtues of the Catholic Church he walked without spot or stain."[127] He was honored with the friendship of men of great distinction, such as Sir Thomas More, Erasmus, Sadolet, Bishop of Carpentras, Bembo, Friuli, Paul III., and Ignatius Loyola. His forgiving disposition may be gathered from the fact that when three English ruffians came to Capranica to murder him, were arrested on suspicion, and confessed that they were emissaries of Henry VIII., he would only allow them to be condemned to the galleys for a few days. His clemency, as we have seen, in a relentless age, caused him to be suspected; and we have the testimony of Bishop Burnet, the Protestant historian of the Reformation,[128] to assure us that
"such qualities and such a temper as his, could he have brought others into the same measures, would probably have gone far toward bringing back this nation to the Church of Rome; as he was a man of as great probity and virtue as any of the age he lived in."